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Monday, 31 October 2005

New Zealand in Iranian sights

Cox and Forkum's cartoon (right) highlights the most commented upon threat made by Iran's new president in his recent 'Kill them all' speech: his call for Israel to be "wiped off the map." But that wasn't the only threat made; as Amir Taheri reports, "the new generation of Iran's Islamic revolutionaries" now wants to "play chicken" against the entire West, including New Zealand.

Blogger RegimeChangeIran points out (with pictures) that Iran's chief strategic guru and the architect of the so-called "war preparation plan" currently under way in Iran, Hassan Abbassi, has us here in New Zealand in his sights. In a lecture given in Tehran,

he claimed that the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, and the Gulf states were all "children of the same mother: the British Empire." As for France and Germany, they are "countries in terminal decline", according to Abbasi.

"We have a strategy drawn up for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization," said Abbassi in 2004, and he has now made clear that we Kiwis are included in those plans.

We must make use of everything we have at hand to strike at this front by means of our suicide operations or by means of our missiles. There are 29 sensitive sites in the U.S. and in the West. We have already spied on these sites and we know how we are going to attack them. Once we have defeated the Anglo-Saxons the rest will run for cover.

As we know, the Clark Government ran for cover long ago, but it's about time they woke up to this threat. Although our new foreign minister has leapt into action, calling Ahmadinejad's threat "unhelpful" -- that should put the wind up the mullahs! -- he and others seemed to have overlooked Abbassi's comments. It might be time for the Clark Government's previous position of crawling appeasement (coupled with the assertion that we here in Godzone enjoy an "incredibly benign strategic environment") to be seriously rethought. Urgently.

[UPDATE: Just so you're clear about the nature of who's threatening whom, Atlas Shrugs offers a comparison between 'The Week in Israel vs the Week in Iran.' While Israel enjoyed a busy week of achievement, scientific advance and medical breakthroughs, Iran endured another week of bloodshed, murder, threats and death. Said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at an Oct 30 cabinet meeting, “if we were permitted to hang two or three persons, the problems with the stock exchange would be solved for ever.” ]

I think Bush has his hands full dealing with an outright hostile media view of Iraq. I hope he doesn't let Iran pull a North Vietnam - allow armaments and personnel to be shipped across the border because he's too afraid of addressing the "root cause" (the mullahs running Iran).

Now that's one possible parallel with Vietnam I can see approaching. Unless Iran is confronted now, of course.

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